Jonathan Price left home at the age of 16 to attend art school, where he became interested in drama. He earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and became a successful stage actor. At some point he changed the spelling of his last name from Price to Pryce. He has won two Tonys, and continues to perform in plays between films.

Pryce created the role of the Engineer in Miss Saigon on the London stage, and sparked an American controversy when he agreed to reprise the role on Broadway. The character is half-Asian, half-French, and protesters wanted an Asian actor in the role. With Pryce in the play, the show eventually went on, and theater-goers presumably forgot to be offended. He has appeared in London productions of everything from Hamlet to My Fair Lady, and in 2004 co-starred with his wife Kate Fahy in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

Best recognized as the daydreaming bureaucrat in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Pryce's other memorable film roles include the client in Glengarry Glen Ross, the Juan Peron to Madonna's Evita (1996), and a hammy, megalomaniacal Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies.